Beef brisket noodles are an underrated dish in singapore, especially the Cantonese beef brisket noodle variant. While they haven’t quite gone the way of the dinosaurs, it’s still a rare find, and requires going out of the way to places like Mei Ling Market.

Fortunately, Lao Jie Fang’s beef brisket noodles ($5) are worth the effort. Springy thin egg noodles are tossed in a mouthwatering mix of potent chili and that sapid sauce that the beef is slowly braised in. As for the beef itself, there’s a generous portion of meaty chunks of brisket that gently pull apart under slight pressure.

Not only are they tremendously tender, the flavorful sauce has fully permeated every last morsel of beef, and each bite is a gentle explosion of solidly savory flavors. The beef tendons in the bowl are a few seconds away from melting on its own, and each gelatinous bite is brimming over with pure deliciousness.

A mildly interesting thing about Lao Jie Fang is just how fastidious the proprietor is about the cleanliness of his stall. It’s easily the cleanest stall in the entire hawker centre, and I’m positive I saw the guy wipe down the countertops about a half dozen times while I was slowly reveling in the redolence of this bowl of beef brisket noodles.